In This Issue: Jake Freivald

In This Issue

If you’re not too bogged down by scary weather, enjoy a few creepy stories.

Two great new ones — Zombie March by Brynn MacNabb, and Mid-Autumn Moon by Lani Carroll — are brief enough to read even as the waters are rising, and if you need to wait until afterwards for Kafka’s A Fratricide... well, it has been waiting since 1917.

Be safe and dry. And if you’re not on the East Coast, send good vibes our way, and have a spooky time. Read more: HTML

Flash 10/2012, #1: Brynn MacNabb

Zombie March

Amber Riley’s husband had promised that he would come home to her no matter what, so after they reported him dead she began to keep the shotgun next to the front door. The day he returned, ambling, shambling, reeking of decay, the dog barked once in warning and went to hide under the back porch. Amber dried her hands on a dish towel and went to look at her husband through the screen.

“Amber,” he said. (Not “brains.”)

She ran a finger down the barrel of the shotgun, propped beside her. “Thank you for coming.” Read more: HTML

Flash 10/2012, #2: Lani Carroll

Mid-Autumn Moon

The lake was alive with lights — the lanterns on the boats, golden and round, like hundreds of miniature suns, and the moon, so heavy on the horizon that it was difficult to believe that it would be able to climb any higher in the sky. The foxes smiled debonairly as they steered the boats. They knew well how to mimic the behavior of aristocratic young men, though they couldn’t entirely refrain from an occasional impatient yip, while their doll companions tried to wear the same demure expressions they had so often seen on their mistresses’ faces. Read more: HTML

Classic Flash #62: Franz Kafka

A Fratricide

The evidence shows that this is how the murder was committed:

Schmar, the murderer, took up his post about nine o’clock one night in clear moonlight by the corner where Wese, his victim, had to turn from the street where his office was into the street he lived in.

The night air was shivering cold. Yet Schmar was wearing only a thin blue suit; the jacket was unbuttoned, too. He felt no cold; besides, he was moving about all the time. His weapon, half a bayonet and half a kitchen knife, he kept firmly in his grasp, quite naked. Read more: HTML